David’s Weekly Tech Reader

Give me 10 minutes here and you will be caught up on all that is web 2.0 and social media. Here are my favorite articles from the around the web for the previous week. You can always follow my recommended stories in real-time through the Recommended Reading page or through my Lifestream.

Last 20 Select Articles

This is a crazy fun demo of the new Avatar toys by Mattel. Each toy includes a little card that is scannable via webcam and creates an on-screen augmented reality robot or character. While this is old hat for most of us, Mattel is quite proud of being ahead of the curve and for good reason. You can see more demos at AvatarItag.com. Total Immersion made the technology and even added a little “button” system to the cards. When you touch a spot…

…at least according to an infographic by Information is Beautiful. The stats, compiled by Brian Solis from Google Ad Planner data, show that equal numbers of men and women use sites like LinkedIn, DeviantArt and YouTube. When it comes to sites like Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, FriendFeed, MySpace and Bebo, however, women outnumber men. In fact, there’s only one major holdout for men on the social web: social news site Digg, where 64% of user…

Podcast pioneer Leo Laporte gave a talk at the Online News Association Conference in San Francisco on Friday, giving insights into the future of media coupled with anecdotes from his work in television and radio. The keynote, entitled “Lunch with Leo”, runs 40 minutes, but it’s well worth the time if you’re involved in online media and broadcasting. The most interesting tidbit: Laporte’s TWiT (This Week in Tech) network does $1.5 milli…

Today, I have some very big news at Noupe. I am thrilled to announce that Noupe has been acquired by Smashing Magazine. This is certainly both a good move for Noupe and a benefit to our readers. I am very happy that Smashing Magazine wants to invest in growing the vision that I believe so strongly in. Smashing Magazine will bring many exciting things to Noupe in the next few months as this relationship takes form. Right now, we are still finalizi…

A few years back every blogger wanted a magazine theme, to have a ton of featured articles in header and so on, but this trend is no longer hot. Now every magazine wants a blog for the homepage. So here are the coolest 10 bloggy magazines we found. As usual, please share links and opinions in the comments area. Enjoy! Esquire UK | @esquireuk Good | @good Frankie | @frankiemagazine Creative Review | @creativereview Bitch | @bitchmedia Acclai…

Man, WordPress is so cool in so many ways! Need a website for your school project? There’s a theme for that! Need a small landing page for a new product you market? There’s a theme for that also! Need a fully customizable E-commerce website? There are quite a few interesting themes for that and we’re here to introduce them: WPA Storefront | $30 | Details | Demo This theme solves that problem by using the existing WP-E-Commerce plugin code…

VC, startups, Busts Robert Buderi wrote: As you might have noticed around Boston, a lot of people like to whine about how California and especially Silicon Valley are, well, just better at startups. Entrepreneurs flock to California, where venture capitalists take more risks. Why, oh why, can’t we be more like Silicon Valley? Well, it turns out VCs and entrepreneurs in California beat Boston and Massachusetts in another measure: big ve…

Graphics technology developer Nvidia has formally introduced its next generation graphics architecture, codenamed Fermi, which Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang described as putting a supercomputer into a GPU. Unlike traditional GPUs, which are optimized for rendering and graphics tasks, the Fermi architecture is intended to put standard computing operations and graphics procedures on equal footing, enabling developers to leverage the…

You cant spend any time on Twitter without geeks lusting after Google Wave. Here’s my quick take…it has as much chance catching on as RSS did. I have had a Google Wave sandbox account since late July. It’s slick to be sure. However, what I keep asking myself is this: what problem does it solve? In many ways it’s overly complex. In fact it’s too complex for the era of the Attention Crash where all of us, especially knowledge workers, are cryi…

When Facebook attacks, it’s not pretty. We were just remarking on how new ways of spreading malware were plaguing social media, and now the second Facebook-related scam in the past week appears to be spreading. Have a look at the picture below, and if you see a profile similar to what you see in the screenshot, do not click on the video link. If you do, you’ll see a similar “malware warning” to that pictured at right. If you keep followin…

Still hunting for a Google Wave invite? You’re not alone — and in fact, there’s a whole community springing up just to meet your needs. Google Wave Invites is a free “marketplace” for distributing Wave invites, much like have sprung up in the past for Gmail and other popular invite-only beta web apps. If you need an invite, simply sign up with your name and email address and cross your fingers. [UPDATE]: The site is apparently being pou…

This is what an economic strategy of pulling it forward looks like. In August, car buyers were going nuts with a $4,500 incentive to trade clunkers in for brand new cars. Many warned, of course, that these sales would simply end up decreasing future sales, getting us nowhere. Well, September’s here, and… yeah. A monthly sales rate of over 14 million units annualized quickly fell to just above 9 million. Get This Delivered To Your…

@blaneysblarney: This is the judge. Stop. A U.K. judge informed an anonymous twitter user who impersonates a British right-wing blogger that he was enjoined from continuing to do so. Because he was anonymous — and his address therefore unknown — the judge informed @blaneysblarney of his decision in the most efficient way – via Twitter. Reuters: I think this is a landmark decision to issue a writ via Twitter, said Dr Konstantinos Komaiti…

Associated Press Shares of lithium-ion battery maker A123 Systems Inc. jumped in morning trading, a day after the Watertown-based company closed its initial public offering of 32.4 million shares. A123 Systems shares reached a high for the day of of $24.10 before closing at $22.61, a 6 percent gain. The company raised $437.5 million in its initial public offering, selling the shares at $13.50 each, including 31.7 million shares sold by the co…

Not long ago, we broke the news that Google has started sending invites for Google Wave. The run-up to the launch of Google’s real-time communication tool has dominated both social media and mainstream media chatter for the last few days. Twitter users have been clamoring for invites (or trying to buy invites on eBay). So what should you expect when you first get your invite and enter Google Wave? Well we know the answer. Mashable’s Jenni…

Apple quietly bought an online maps company, Placebase, sometime in the past several months. Seth Weintraub at Computerworld was the first to post about it last night, including a LinkedIn profile showing the former Placebace CEO now working on the "Geo Team" at Apple. What’s the point? It could be something innocuous: He might be leading the geocoding and geolocation features on apps like iPhoto and the iPhone’s "find my phone" feature. Or mayb…

3Di’s Web-based viewer used for on-line commerce 3Di of Japan has released the source code for its browser-based viewer, accelerating the possibility that the ability to access openSim virtual worlds through the browser will become increasingly stable and effective. According to the company press release: 3Di, Inc., which develops and offers 3D Internet solutions (Head office: Shibuya-ku, Tokyo; […]

My Note: Social networking is one of the most important activities—online and offline—among US social network users, based on results of Beresford Research’s “Use of Online Social Networks” white paper.

San Franciscoand#8212;White papers, long the standard collateral that marketers use to attract Web site visitors and log conversions, are increasing in influence among technology purchasers, a new study found.

Guitar Hero recently released a new version of their smash hit video game that has sold over $1 Billion. To the casual observer Guitar Hero seems like an overnight success, a stroke of luck and genius. But this is a story of tenacity, strong willed entrepreneurs, and patient, supportive investors. I first wrote this story several years ago when I met one of the founders of Guitar Hero at the Nantucket Conference. The recent release of the game m…

David Laubner is an expert in the field of marketing and product management. His background includes numerous technology product launches and the founding of several internet startups.
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